The Current Online

by Lavette Wilder
Missouri College Media Award: Third Place, Column

Call me cynical, but I’ve become convinced that World War III could break out, and the country would be too busy watching “Dancing with the Stars” to know it happened. Or Sunday Night Football. Or “NCIS.” Don’t believe me? All three ranked higher in the Nielsen ratings earlier this month than “60 minutes”, the highest rated news program on broadcast television.

Ok, yes, I’m exaggerating and, in fairness, I have no soapbox to stand on here. Quite frankly, it’s shocking that the ESPN logo is not burned into my television set. [...]

by Dani Post 

Kim Coates plays Tig (MCT Campus).

The third-season hit series Sons of Anarchy premiered Sept. 7, bringing back the bad-boy motorcycle gang from Charming, Calif. to the FX. 

Sons is the highest rated FX series ever, according to TV by the Numbers. 

For those who have watched the show from the beginning, this season promises to be even more entertaining, with Gemma, Clay, Jax, baby Abel and the rest of the crew returning. New additions to the cast include Paula Malcolmson (Trixie in Deadwood) and Hal Holbrook. 

The second season of Sons attracted an average of 4.5 million viewers, a 72 percent spike from the first season, according to the Neilson Co. Sutter’s writings are fueled by his own life experiences with motorcycle riding, drug and alcohol addiction and exercising the demons within himself, he openly tells readers of his blog, SutterInk. 

Sutter had taken a hiatus from motorcycle riding during his 17- year recovery but has resumed riding since the creation of Sons.

As Mad Men moves into its fourth season, is Betty left behind?     

by Mary McKeown      

From episode 1, AMC’s Mad Men has been as much about sexism as it is about advertising and the 1960s. After all, where would you draw the line if you tried to separate them?     

January Jones plays Betty Draper on AMC's Mad Men (MCT Campus).

Front and center has been Grace Kelly clone Betty Draper. She’s the big reveal after we first learn about the brilliant, cruel ad man Don Draper and his bohemian girlfriend at the beginning of the series. In a seeming afterthought, we learn that Don is married – to a Barbie.     

In season one, we loved Betty for her desire for Don, for her loneliness, for her ability and willingness to shoot her neighbor’s pet pigeon out of the sky with a cigarette dangling out of her mouth. Don left her abandoned her at a kid’s birthday party with no cake. He had an affair with a hipster artist and plotted to run away with Miss Menken. Betty didn’t even know his real name. And she had no one to talk to but that weird boy from down the street. [...]

by Dalton Gossett

NBC’s newest sitcom “Community” offers comedy-seekers a hyperbolized chance to scope into the life of a community college student.

The show stars Joel McHale as humorous Jeff Winger, a lawyer forced to attend Greendale Community College as a result of his “non-legitimate” college degree. He is willing to go to any extreme to gain a college degree again as easily and quickly as possible.  [...]

by Morgan Ryman

So I saw this TV show the other night, and I will not mention it by name. If you can infer what it is, well, sorry you can identify it, and if not, consider yourself lucky that the entertainment industry hasn’t gotten to you yet.

I use that term entertainment loosely. In a 30 second commercial, no matter how funny they may be, the goal is never to entertain. The only goal is to sell you something, whether you are aware or not. And now, with a new fall television lineup, we are presented with a once popular commercial expanded into a 22-minute situation comedy. At least that’s what they tell us.

We were told growing up that TV will rot our minds, and just now I am starting to see this come to fruition. Like this other show I refuse to give a free mention to, you know, the one on the network that says it offers one thing, but only presents it at 5 in the morning on weekdays. This show…show is a term I am once again using loosely, consists of pretty teenagers doing…umm…I’m sorry I couldn’t watch enough to thin out a plot of some type. This show, and the five or six other equivalents on the same channel will do more brain damage than shooting LSD into your neck.

The entertainment industry has lost its mind. It is disgusting, lazy, and fueled by bad dope. It is time for entertainment to become uncomfortable, to be shaken like a baby. If the current writers and creators keep putting out this vapid crap, then why aren’t new, fresh writers and creative minds brought in to delight the masses?

Nearest I can see, it’s because they are way too comfortable. They feel a sense of loyalty to the minds that once presented brilliance and pure entertainment, so they let them slide by creating devoid dating shows, “reality” television, and expanding commercials that already had their 30 seconds of fame.

And they will continue to do so, as long as you keep watching.

The Matrix has you.